capt_oats

I don't think that's necessarily the case. After he'd come back in the summer Alexander had started him 8 of the 11 league league games before his latest injury. I don't think there's anything that suggests Alexander doesn't rate him. Alexander has had him involved in all but one of the games he's been fit. There's a difference between him being happy for him to leave and letting him know there had been enquiries and asking what his plans were. Aye, Lamie came on as a sub in both games against Aberdeen then started against Rangers and County. I just assumed he'd been out the squad on account of the injury he picked up against Hibs in December rather than any emptying being done.

It was confirmed a while back that he'd had offers in the January window and he'd kb'd them so that's not really a secret as such. Interesting to hear St Johnstone were one of the clubs. If it was St Johnstone then at the end of the January window we were sitting 4th, they were bottom - doesn't seem too tough a decision to patch their enquiry and hold off to see where things stand at the end of the season when he's OOC. The fact we signed Shaw (originally a St Johnstone target IIRC) makes a bit more sense if there was the possibility that O'Hara might move though. Given the amount of football O'Hara's missed while he's been with us it wouldn't be too much of a surprise that we left the decision to him in terms of what he wanted to do. To put it in context O'Hara's missed 31 of Alexander's 58 games in charge (but started 18 of the 27 he's been available with 8 sub appearances and 1 unused sub). For comparison Donnelly (who didn't play a single game for GA last season) has missed 30 of 58 (started 18, subbed on 4, unused sub in 5 and suspended 1).

See this is broadly where I am. No hate on O'Hara from me, I totally get that he's been noticeable in our current midfield and he's not Sean Goss. I was just a bit surprised to find there seems to be a bit of an active "Give Mark O'Hara a new contract" bandwagon on the go amongst certain sections of Motherwell Twitter or that there seemed to be surprise he hadn't been offered anything formally given until recently he hadn't kicked a baw for us since mid-November. Presumably it's after the interview that went up on the official last week saying "I have not been offered anything as such yet but I am obviously trying to play well to earn it." and people are clutching their pearls as is the wont amongst our fanbase. Fwiw, given the game time he's getting I'd imagine he'll probably be offered a new deal (along with Donnelly). Whether he signs it is a different story as you say, I'd imagine the deal he got when Robinson pushed to sign him would put him at the higher end of the wage scale - I'm not sure that after 3 seasons his value now matches that when Robinson was looking to make him permanent. IIRC Goodwin was after him at St Mirren when we signed him permanently as well - so we had a bit of competition there. Tbh, now Mugabi's signed up it kind of feels like where we were at the end of 18/19 with folk like Main, Frear, McHugh etc all heading out of contract and we were doing that wee dance of not wanting to look like we were binning them off but not willing to match what they'd likely get elsewhere.

There was a bit in The Athletic back in December.

That was my thought as well. I don't see any reason why we would change the profile of player we'd be looking at and given the way things have gone with the recruitment I don't see why we wouldn't be able to find similar value to someone like Slattery. If anything, in principle, we should be in a better position to focus on targets as we're not looking at an entire overhaul of the squad. The word from the AGM was that as it stands we'd be looking at 5 max, right? We've got 4 players on short term deals/loans heading out of contract or have signed a pre-contract elsewhere (Lamie, Nirennold, Shaw, Amaluzor, Roberts) that's before you factor in players who have been in the building longer term whose deals are up eg: Grimshaw, O'Hara and Donnelly.

No shade on anyone but I've seen few tweets about how great he is so I'm genuinely curious, when did Mark O'Hara become a fan favourite and given he's missed significant chunks of every one of the 3 seasons he's been at the club is anyone really surprised that we've apparently not offered him a new deal as yet? Full disclosure, I quite like O'Hara but I'm still no further in knowing what his best position is and I strongly suspect I never will.

I'll admit, I was being a bit facetious with that . I totally get why folks takes would be different between Slattery and Woolery. It does lend itself to the idea that players are perhaps being "managed" though, I mean that's big Bevis sat out the last two now as well (he also wasn't in the squad against Hibs and was an unused sub against Hearts - having started 19 of the 20 league games before the break). Whether that is a hangover of the wild injury situation we had last season and not wanting a repeat IDK. I'm maybe pulling at a thread that isn't even there but SOD was benched for 3 games after the 0-4 against Celtic. Sure, that may have been about form but presuming McGinley's missing on account of injury at the moment that's 4 of the 6 outfield players sitting on 20+ starts who have all been "rested" in some form or other in the period after the break (ironically we had KVV taking injections to make sure he played). Either way it feels like the winter break is something that Alexander's had a difficult time navigating, whether that's down to the outbreak of the 'vid around Christmas or it's just something he's not had to deal with before as a manager, who knows? One of the pluses of Robinson's time was that we generally came back from the winter break on the front foot. 18/19 and the introduction of Sexy Motherwell probably being the best case in point. This season it feels like a lot of it has been about "big picture" stuff and we've come back from the break and it's been a bit of a mess with trying to get players game time all over the place. In fact, speaking of Sexy Motherwell...just want Gboly back tbh.

You can probably litigate a few positions eg: Mugabi over SOD at RB and one of Ojala/Lamie coming in at centre back, Slattery in for Donnelly with O'Hara or whoever coming into the midfield but I'd say if everyone is 'at it' that team is broadly 75%/80% our strongest XI. What stands out to me is that the outfield player with the most starts is Woolery. He had started in 18 of 20 league games up to the break. Kelly aside, arguably our most settled area of the park was the forward 3 with him, Watt and KVV. Yet, like Slattery he seems to have been 'managed' post-winter break - he was on the bench for 6 of the 9 games directly after the break (he's started 6 of the 12 games with 3 off the bench as a sub, 3 as an unused sub - 569 mins played of a potential 1,110 mins) although (unless I've missed it) there's been nowhere near the same level of angst/conspiracy as there has been Slattery. For comparison here's Slattery (he's started 4 of the 12 with 4 appearances off the bench, 4 unused sub - 351 mins played of a potential 1,110 mins).

So looking at league starts it's? Kelly (30) SOD (21) Mugabi (21) Johansen (18) McGinley (22) Slattery (21) Donnelly (13) Goss (19) Woolery (23) KVV (21) Watt (18) Ojala (13), Carroll (12), Lamie (12), O'Hara (12), Maguire (11), Grimshaw (10), Shields (9), Roberts (7), Efford (4), Cornelius (2), Shaw (2), Tierney (2), Amaluzor (2), O'Connor (0), Nirennold (0), Crawford (0), Lawless (0)

That's quite the existential question. We went a run of 1 win in 12 at the crossover in the Brown/McCall season (and didn't win any of our last 6 - albeit we were in the top half for those). To be clear, while I get the rationale (assuming my interpretation is vaguely correct) I don't find the whole rotation thing any less annoying. I mean Jordan Roberts has just scored at Ibrox but you decide to give Connor Shields a start in the next game? Dude! C'mon! I get that Shaw has probably had his card marked since Tynecastle but he comes on against Rangers does a job but it's Goss who starts the next game in that position? As I say, I understand that Goss is viewed as our playmaker but also...whut? Obviously no wins in 10 league games sounds...bad but depending on how much you like your spin we've only lost one of our last 4 (and that was a result of dubious penalty) and if you bring "all competitions" into the mix then it's one loss in 5 (and a win to boot, Yay!) and until the Celtic and United games in February we'd only lost b2b games once previously this season (Hearts (a), Celtic (h) and United (a) back in October). As I said though, it's up to Alexander to fix it (and tbf, he's said that himself as well). From my POV it's kind of hard to get away from the fact that in pretty much any given season over the past 5 years or so 36 points after 30 games would have us in the Top 6 conversation (it's actually 5 of the last 6). Last season 6th after 30 games was 36 points, 19/20 was 37 points, 18/19 was 45 (an outlier), 17/18 was 39, 16/17 was 37, 15/16 it was 38...you get the picture. So despite this run of no wins in 10 we're actually pretty much around where you'd expect us to be in terms of points. Could be better, could be worse. This just seems a mental season given there are only 5 points between 4th and 10th. In comparison this time last season the gap between 4th and 10th was 22 (TWENTY TWO) points. To step back and think about what a Motherwell manager's KPIs are likely to be at the start of any season then 12 and 13 points clear for 11th and 12th after 30 games, in the mix for the top 6, a quarter final of a cup and unbeaten in 2 trips to Ibrox sounds like something we'd have taken back in July after we'd just been scudded by Airdrie. Clearly expectations change though and the fact we've been sat in 4th for 11 of 30 matchdays and solidly from December through to the start of February means slipping down the table is problematic. Then there's someone like Martindale at Livi, finished last season with 1 win 12, started this season with 1 win in 8 (in fact 3 wins in his opening 16 - 4 wins from 28 games over the end of 20/21 and start of 21/22)...he's picked up now though.

Nah, he's contracted to 2023. He signed a new deal in the summer.

It was a save from Alnwick though. Tbh, my take based on nothing in particular is that GA's come from a management environment where teams are playing 46 league games a season plus various cup competitions and the result is he's tying himself in knots with team selections trying to find a balance of "load management", horses for courses and meritocracy. Mugabi has had good performances against Aberdeen this season so it made sense to drop him in at RB for those games. Putting him up against Kent or whoever seems like a really bad idea so SOD gets the nod there. He put in a shift so it seems unlikely he'll lose the jersey especially given he's our captain. Binning off Goss at Ibrox to have a midfield 3 who'll rat because we're not going to see much of the ball seems sensible but rightly or wrongly he's viewed as our "playmaker" so I get why he'd be back in against County and Dundee at home. If that's the rationale I can understand it. I don't necessarily agree with it, I'd far rather see a more settled side, but there seem to be a collection of folk on Twitter who are perpetually furious no matter what team gets picked now - which is just really fucking hard work tbqhwy.

He did, aye. Based on the SPFL highlights along with the KVV chance you mention there was one from Goss from a SOD cross and Tierney through the centre when he was crowded out/took a heavy touch. All of them were while it was still 0-0. Pretty sure there were other chances that didn't make the edit. St Mirren's best chance (other than the goal) came from a set piece. The only other save Kelly has to make is a dig from about 25 yards that resulted in the corner they scored from. According to the stats St Mirren only had 3 shots on target. So that will be them. Don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone is trying to rewrite history with this but it's interesting that the a) we moved away from the 433 and b) the change in shape saw us pass the ball more and dominate the ball in their final third (which seems to be one of the things that's getting a lot of folk bent out of shape - along with the whole no wins in 10 thing). This is our shot map compared to St Mirren up to their goal in 80 minutes (11 vs 6).

Big #Pete6 wins the league...(with Owen Coyle as his manager).

Aye, to be clear that post wasn't designed to be contrary, it also lacks context eg: that Aberdeen game was played after a week of shitty weather and a pitch inspection so us playing fewer passes could easily be put down to "playing the conditions", similarly Dundee were missing half their team and set up in a 451 so it's probably not surprising that we had significantly more of the ball. Either way in all 3 of those games (2 against Jim Goodwin managed sides) the opposition played a higher percentage of long balls than us. Really it was just interesting to me was that while the flirtation with a change of shape only lasted 2 games (we were 3-0 down at H/T against Celtic and back to 433 for the United game) your take on the St Mirren game wasn't off the mark - and we passed the ball more. Whoscored don't have the same analysis for the cup games so without necessarily boring everyone to death and going through every game we've played this season, tracking back to recent games that we actually won eg: St Johnstone and Livi before the winter break, we made 347 passes (83 long balls - 23.9%) against Saints and 289 (74 long balls - 25.6%) against Livi. The caveat there I suppose is probably that Alexander's default when we go 2 up seems to be to let the opposition have the ball.

I watched it back on MFC TV just there and I think there's an argument for this. Not necessarily that we should have persisted with it but it's possible that we could resurrect it at some point. I mean, don't get me wrong we looked like a side playing a unfamiliar shape so it was awkward and a bit clunky and people lost their shit because we ended up chucking Bevis up front but on a rewatch it felt like we were passing the ball in the midfield more, the midfield and SOD were pushed higher up the park so whoscored.com's summary is actually quite interesting. had a large quantity of possession in their opponents half more possession than St Mirren better pass success % than St Mirren 13 of our 15 shots were from open play had more passes than St Mirren, more short passes and fewer long balls For comparison I've stuck the report from the Dundee game in the spoiler: 27 more passes 29 more long balls than the St Mirren game 4 fewer short passes 63% pass success 57.2% possession 114 of 418 passes were long balls (27.2%) Fwiw here's the link to the 1-1 against Aberdeen. 76 fewer passes than the St Mirren game 99 long balls (31.4% of our passes compared with 21.7% against St Mirren) 185 short balls (compared with 284 against St Mirren)

See, I saw it more as a 5221 (BBC have it as a 3421) when he trialed it against St Mirren but the Celtic game pretty much killed it dead. I kind of wonder if that was the (short-lived) plan that we hoped to transition to and compensate for Watt fucking off as it got all of SOD, Mugabi, Johansen, Carroll, Slattery, Donnelly, Shaw, Goss and KVV on the park at the same time (I mean, it wasn't that long ago that Sean Goss was the guy making our midfield function) with an obvious spot for Tierney coming off the bench, you can even imagine O'Hara fitting in there somewhere in an advanced midfield role. Ultimately we stumbled through the St Mirren game and only equalised after we'd brought Roberts and Woolery on then got scudded against Celtic when we tried it again so we just quickly binned it and reverted back to 433. It feels like GA has flirted with different shapes (we'd pivot to a 4231 now and again earlier in the season) but they've never really stuck and even in terms of style, the original iteration of Alexanderball was us trying to play the ball out from the back with the bold Tyler Magloire picking up short goal kicks from Kelly.

100% Since the winter break we've conceded the first goal in 11 of our 12 games in all competitions. The one we didn't we drew 0-0 with Hibs. We've won 2 of those 12 and drawn 5. Contrast that with the fixtures before the break. 25 games played we scored first in 13 (52%) of which we won 10 (1 draw - St Mirren and lost 2 - Hibs and Rangers). So in games where we had scored first we've gone on to win in 76.9% of them and not lost in 84.6%. Of the games where we conceded the first goal up to the break we won 2 drew 3 and lost 7. As @Busta Nut says on the other page Alexander's going nowhere so folk getting bent out of shape and shouty in the clubs mentions are going to be disappointed but equally I doubt anyone's naive enough to think that no league wins in 10 isn't going to cause frustration - especially given the situation we found ourselves in at the winter break. Really it's up to Alexander to fix that. As a side bar to that, to put things in a bit of context our points tally at the moment is comparable with most recent seasons after 30 games save the 3rd place in 19/20 and going back further McCall's 3rd and 2nd places (which stands to reason): 20/21 (Robinson/Alexander) - 29 pts (-7 pts) - finished 8th place 19/20 (Robinson) - 46 pts (+10 pts) - finished 3rd* 18/19 (Robinson) - 40 pts (+4 pts) - finished 8th 17/18 (Robinson) - 36 pts (+/- 0) - finished 7th 16/17 (McGhee/Robinson) - 28 pts (-8 pts) - finished 9th 15/16 (Baraclough/McGhee) - 41 pts (+5 pts) - finished 5th 14/15 (McCall/Baraclough) - 25 pts (-10 pts) - finished 11th 13/14 (McCall) - 57 pts - (+21 pts) - finished 2nd 12/13 (McCall) - 47 pts - (+11 pts) - finsihed 2nd 11/12 (McCall) - 54 pts - (+19 pts) - finished 3rd 10/11 (Brown/McCall) 37 pts - (+1 point) - finished 6th Clearly it's wild that as things stand we're still only a point off 4th but equally I doubt that sitting on 36 points after 30 games is far off where we'd expect to be on a purely numbers basis.

Sort of. Except Polworth actually had a good season for us.

@RiG has already covered it but to chip in here about Polworth, he had a great first season with us (Motherwell) and was easily one of our most productive player in the season we finished 3rd but for whatever reason he went off a cliff in the 2nd. Whether that was down to the pandemic or what IDK but it really soured in the end (the tweets from his missus confirm that ). He got himself sent off against Aberdeen in Alexander's 3rd game he was pretty much done, he got one last run out in a 3-0 loss against St Johnstone where he absolutely phoned it in and after that saw out his last few months training with the weans. He seemed to have been in talks with Hughes about going back up the road at the end of last season only for County to bin Hughes so Polworth ended up at Killie (I'm pretty sure Wright had tried to sign him for St Johnstone but he opted for Motherwell instead). I'm not sure whether or not he was scunnered about not getting to go back up the road or not, it'd kind of explain why it hasn't really worked out for him at Killie if his heart hasn't really been in it. I'm guessing his missus didn't like Ayrshire any more than she did Lanarkshire,

Posted on the official.

There was a run after the 1-6 against Rangers where we seemed to sort things out a bit with 4 clean sheets from 8 games and specific to home games we only conceded 1 goal in 4. The Dundee game at Dens was very much an outlier: Post winter-break has been very different - 1 clean sheet in 10.

I'm another who wouldn't be surprised to see a draw here. For all there's been hand wringing about how we've not won a (league) game in 2022 we've only lost 1 at home in all competitions in our last 9 (against Celtic) and 4 over the whole season (Hibs on the opening day then Celtic x2 and Rangers). It kind of feels like we've got our fairly shitty run of fixtures since the winter break out the way now where we ended up having to play all the top 6. Of our last 8 league games 5 were away from home losing 4 but we drew 2 of our 3 home games and lost against Celtic. Also, Alexander's touchline ban is up so he'll be back in place to berate officials. Alexander looked like he was ready to murder someone after the last game against County up in Dingwall so hopefully the issues we've had with complacency in the past don't creep in. We've developed a bad habit of going behind in games recently (it's happened in 9 of our last 10 in all competitions) so it'd be nice if we could cut that out and get back to winning games of fitba' (in the league). f**k knows what sort of team we'll put out since as much as the draw against Rangers at Ibrox on Sunday felt like a win (and was very, very funny) there were a bunch of players who put in performances that hadn't been starting recently who could easily have pushed themselves into contention.

That's the Head of Digital, Brand and Communications officially advertised.